In his own words
Munger on Quality & moats
22 sourced quotes. All themes
“A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.”
Munger's own formulation — distinct from Buffett's 'a wonderful company at a fair price' version.
“All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiring more than you are paying for.”
A signature line he restated in varying forms; no single dated occasion pins this wording.
“The number one idea is to view a stock as an ownership of the business, and to judge the staying quality of the business in terms of its competitive advantage.”
“We like the business great first. Then, second, we want a great manager. But we have not made a huge success by investing in great managers who take over lousy businesses. That is not the way we rose. If you're a lousy manager, you really need a great business.”
“Practically everything dies in business. None of the eminents last forever. They're all on their way to dying, so other things can replace them and live.”
Transcripts split on one spoken word ('eminents' vs 'eminence') — no canonical spelling exists.
“The only duty of a corporate executive is to widen the moat. We gave you a competitive advantage, and you must leave us the moat.”
From a note-taker's recollections (captioned by him as 'not quotes'), so the wording is approximate — but 'widen the moat' is a well-attested Munger formulation.
“IBM got bounced off the wave after "surfing" successfully for 60 years. And that was some collapse — an object lesson in the difficulties of technology.”
“Wrigley, simply by being so well known, has advantages of scale — what you might call an informational advantage.”
“Elon says a conventional moat is quaint. That's true of a puddle of water. He says that the best moat would be to have a big competitive position. That is also right. It's just ridiculous.”
His riposte to Elon Musk dismissing moats as 'quaint.'
“My theory, Warren, is if it can't stand a little mismanagement, it's no business.”
His test of a truly great business — it survives a mediocre manager. Said to Buffett.
“The trouble there was not that Henry Singleton grew old. It's that some of those businesses' franchises got cold.”
On why Teledyne faded — not Singleton's age but cooling franchises.
“What you're seeing in Coke's stock price is the residual prediction that despite its recent stumbles, they'll be coloring a lot more water 20 years from now.”
From Tilson's notes — Coke as 'colored water.'
“We found out fairly quickly that we could raise the price every year 10%, and nobody cared. We didn't make the volumes go up or anything like that. Just made the profits go up.”
On See's Candies' pricing power.
“There's something about the flavor of ketchup on a goddamn fried potato… that you are really willing to change brands over. They want Heinz! And so, you can raise the price of Heinz pretty much.”
On Heinz's brand pricing power.
“Unfortunately, a lot of moats have been filling up with sand lately — you know, the daily newspaper, the network television station, all these castles with their lovely moats. The moats are filling up.”
“We made that success not by conquering change, but by avoiding it.”
On Burlington Northern's durability.
“I don't think that value investing will ever go out of style. Who in the hell doesn't want value when you buy something? How can there be anything else that makes any sense except value investing?”
“To prevent wealth from killing you, your success turning into a disadvantage, is a big problem in business.”
From his Costco-vs-GM contrast — GM's success became its undoing.
“There are actually businesses that you will find a few times in a lifetime, where any manager could raise the return enormously just by raising prices — and yet they haven't done it. So they have huge untapped pricing power that they're not using. That is the ultimate no-brainer.”
“Business success long term is a lot like biology. And in biology, what happens is the individuals all die, and eventually, so do all the species. Capitalism is almost as brutal as that… Whoever dreamed when I was young that Kodak and General Motors would go bankrupt?”
Condensed from a longer answer on capitalism's creative destruction.
“I don't think that works as well as keeping people in one business for a long time and having them identify with the business, the way Berkshire does.”
On GE's culture versus Berkshire's — keeping people in one business.
“Well, the big consumer brands are still very valuable. But they had an easier time in a former era than they're going to have in the future era.”